Sunday, November 21, 2010

I am a reluctant baker, mostly because it is important to be exact with measurements when baking, and I am a cook who enjoys just eyeballing my ingredients. However, Kary at My Farmhouse Kitchen recently posted a recipe for cranberry walnut shortbread cookies that appeared to be festive and, most important, so simple that I thought that I could put up with the rarely used measuring cups and spoons. I am so glad I did!

They turned out fabulously, just as delicious as Kary said they would . Her blog included a photograph of her beautifully finished cookies, showing evenly colored and perfectly round spheres while mine, typical of an uncertain baker, have uneven edges and spots that are a little on the burned darkish side. But the taste...oh,so divine! This recipe is a keeper.

Cleo and Winnie hung around the kitchen while the cookie creation was happening, hoping that a morsel or two might fall their way. Since I am not the neatest of cooks, they lucked out. Who knew pugs liked cranberries!

The cats, on the other hand, snoozed through the entire culinary process, content to wait for their dinner and correctly trusting that I will keep them supplied with their favorite treat: green grass, for all year-round munching, growing in a clay pot inside the house. The latest batch, just now sprouting outside, will shortly replace the half-eaten one now being enjoyed. Yes, I have spoiled animals!

When will I bake again? Well, probably very soon...and this same recipe will be my target. Since I have already eaten 5 of these marvelous cookies, there is no way there will be even a crumb left to take to Thanksgiving dinner, still four days away.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Feeling a bit like a vulture on the prowl, I visited a local estate sale in search of...who knows what. Just looking. That's what I told myself. This particular sale was held in a shabby woebegone barn located waaaaay up a twisty dirt road in the depths of Forestville.

After parking the car, I ambled toward the poor old barn's entrance thinking, as I spied baskets and boxes galore of junk yard items, that I was wasting my time. However, that was not the case as I found my way through the introductory trash maze and entered into a wonderland of forgotten once-loved treasures with bargain price tags .

I left the sale with a few choice collectibles, my favorite being a cheery tomato salt and pepper pair that called my name pleading, "Take me with you." And so I did. The vulture guilt faded, especially when I arrived home and placed my fabulous find on the kitchen counter where they lit up the room like Christmas tree lights. They make me smile.

Friday, November 5, 2010

1. Why do some people whisper certain words in conversation as if saying them fully aloud would be too awful? Example: There are so many (sotto voce) Mexicans in that store. Or I didn't know he was (here comes the sotto voce) gay. These types of statements are usually accompanied by appropriate body language: a hand cupped around the mouth and head turned abruptly to the side to engulf the listener as the apparently distasteful word is uttered.

2. Why, when someone makes one of those whisper comments in my presence, do I just let it go? OK. I know the answer to this one: Hating confrontation, I have to be really pissed off before I launch into an attack mode.

3. Why do so many politicians love to say "with all due respect" before delivering a scathing zinger?

4. Why are people paying big bucks for jeans with faded spots, wrinkles, and rips?

5. Following the example of draft card burners of the 60s, why don't Tea Party seniors "put their money where their mouths are" and burn their Medicare cards? It's not quite the same, I know, because $$$ is involved in the latter situation; but why not be consistent in word and practice? Hello, hypocrisy?